Response #4 Arrow (page 217-end)

Arrow is a very gifted female sniper who shoots at the men who shoot at the civilians of Sarajevo. She works for Nermin but does her own thing, except when he assigns her the task of protecting the cellist. When Nermin dies her new commander tries to make her shoot at civilians who are of the same religion as the Serbs shooting from the hills. Arrow runs away even though she knows they will find and kill her. She runs away to protect the cellist on his last day because she knows it is the right thing to do, and she is tired of the war. When Arrow joined the war I think she changed her name because she did not want the person that she was to be associated with killing people. She does not want the hatred that she feels towards the men on the hills to be any part of her former self. She plans on returning to her old self after the war, but knows it will not be easy. When Arrow hears the men coming to kill her she knows she could kill them all but she doesn’t. She just waits. I believe that now that the cellist is finished, Arrow feels like her work is done. She is tired of the war. Tired of killing and tired of hating. She doesn’t want to kill and hate anymore so she will let the men kill her. Just before they burst into her room “she says, her voice strong and quiet, ‘My name is Alisa’.” This is the last line of the book. I think Arrow says this because now that she is done killing and hating she wants to return to her old self, but she has no time because the men are going to kill her. Saying her name out loud after not even thinking it for so long is her way resigning. She is no longer Arrow who shoots to kill and hates the men on the hills for what they did to her city, and for making her hate them. She is now Alisa. Young, happy, and free of hate. She makes this connection with her old self and remembers what her life was like before the war. Perhaps she would have gone to school, or traveled, and gotten married. The possibilities were endless. The one thing Arrow does know is that this war and hatred is not necessary. “The men on the hills did not have to be murderers. She did not have to be filled with hatred.” As she listens to the cellist on his last day, the music brings these thoughts to the surface along with her tears. I believe it is then that she decides she is done with the war. She lays her rifle in the pile of flowers at the feet of the cellist. She is done killing. Done hating. “The men on the hills, the men in the city, herself, none of them had the right to do the things they’d done. It had never happened. It could not have happened. But she knew these notes. They had become a part of her. They told her that everything had happened exactly as she knew it had, and that nothing could be done about it. No grief or rage or noble act could undo it.” As Arrow realizes that this all could have been so easily stopped, she decides she will do her part to not let it continue. I think this is why she lays down her rifle, goes home and lets the men kill her. When she whispers her name, to her it means that she is dying the peaceful, carefree Alisa that could have lead a normal, happy life had it not been for the war and the hatred. She is dying free.